To Emily, Wherever I May Find Her
by Vita T
Summary: Terry Cusick has spent the better part of his adult life locked away behind bars, accused of killing his lover and her family. As he counts down the endless days of his perpetual confinement, he reminisces on the one girl who had changed his life drastically and how their star crossed love affair was more blessing than curse.-Based on the We Original Series "The Divide"


It comes and goes at various points of his millisecond journeys through yesteryear. They flash in and out of his stunted mind like a blinking alarm clock. It's almost in a mocking way.

In and out.

In and out.

In and out.

Small moments that he is sure he would have forgotten at some point if he had become a man of purpose-of action. Little things that hardly anyone would recall if they were busy making shit happen on an epic scale, but as sharp and vivid as a Van Gogh painting for someone whose biggest highlights of the day included movements of a different kind: reading, sleeping, staring at ancient grey walls in tin room while finding new ways to stay alive in a living and breathing hell hole.

The taste of Lehigh Valley whole milk that always has a hint of sweetness to it, especially on a cold winter's morning, with his mother's homemade pancakes and Kielbasa.

The whispering caress of a gentle breeze flirting with freshly cleaned skin on a warm spring Philly morning.

The echoes of gleeful and carefree screams as the city hydrants become mini oases for urban children looking to beat off the grueling summer heat.

The smell of freshly baked goods sliding through the bus' vents while passing the Tasty Kake factory on the way to school with parents smiling fondly in nostalgic silence.

The way ebony locks fall in gentle waves down a slender back over a blindingly albescent coat as it hits the autumnal sunlight; her alluring smile coated with his favorite strawberry lip gloss showcasing luscious lips that already understood the power of the pout way before it should have.

He wakes up to that image and he prays himself to sleep with it as well.

Those moments had been few and far in between in the short time span he'd known her and took for granted his youth and freedom. Before he understood just how precious and hellish memories could become for a man who had never experienced manhood without a cell and the high probability of death staring him in his gaunt face.

And as much as he wanted to blame those lips, that hair, and the arch of her back as she offered her perfect body to him in total love and submission, the moments where he remembered the way she whispered his name at the height of their inexperienced pleasure, the silly arguments and serious conversations about their limitless future as a sacred union, he could not bring himself to do it.

His so called brothers always offered him a way out in the form of hatred. It was always her fault. Never his. And for a minute he almost gave in. Because the truth and the acceptance of that truth had become no less easy as time marched on. As the world changed around him and without him, while his body became hardened and his heart just shy of stone, he often tried to ignore the cruel ironic reality of his predicament. Correction. Of their predicament.

And then the guilt of realizing that even if his daily routine was monotonous and fated to go down a narrow unforgiving path, the woman that he had loved, that he had been so willing to proclaim to the world as his, would never get the pleasure of constancy. He may have been buried in the eyes of society, hidden away and paying for the crimes he was accused of committing, but at least he was alive if only in the physical sense. On rare days of self-pitying he would say that he had it worse. Those moments had become few and far in between as well and he was proud that his wallowing had become a thing of the past.

In here, thinking too much was just a quicker way to die. It was a distraction, even when locked in the supposed safety of a cell.

It didn't even really matter what the truth was any more. Like anything else, it was treated as any other commodity: negotiable and expensive. There were days he wondered himself if he was wholly innocent in what had transpired. He never did the horrible things that he was accused of, but he did allow certain his personal relationship with the parties he suspected to be involved, cloud his judgment.

He had learned the hard way there was no way to have it all.

The innocence of his youth, the inexperience of dealing with people outside of his small group of friends and neighbors, she had tried to tell him. Because his girl was so smart, so above his scope of intelligence and had already seen the world beyond William Penn's hat. She used to say that her knowledge came with a heavy price and sometimes the burden felt like another form of enslavement. He didn't really get that and she had never bothered to explain it, always telling him, she would educate him some other time.

He was basically an idiot. But he thinks now he understands.

But she loved him anyway and never believed it true. Emily Butler had a way of making the most unrealistic ideas seem possible. They were from the clichéd trope of two different worlds, after all, even though they had gone to the same school and lived a block a part from one another for over five years. She would most likely follow in her mother and father's footsteps and become cardiac surgeon. He wanted to be an architect. He had been around his father's construction business enough to know that he had a way with design. He liked the thought of him creating something from his own brain and with his own hands from scratch. It was an honest and noble profession his mother thought and aside from Emily was the only one that believed he could achieve it. He liked the idea of taking a simple thought and making it a tangible reality with his own hands. His father at the time had been proud of his son, hoping he would take the family business and expand it beyond building other people's visions.

And that was the only thing his father approved. His choice of friends (which in hindsight was actually a valid concern) and his choice of love interest was another matter. His father swore that "fucking that black girl was one thing" but openly dating her would result in tragedy and his bastard father loved to be right even if meant his son would have to pay the price. He knew Jim Cusick took a sick rejoicing in his predicament.

Terry shifted restlessly on his lumpy cot, preparing himself for the light sleep that came with the nightly rituals of locking the gates and the call of "lights out".

As his eyes slowly shut, he thought about the things he could never change, the life he would never have, the young girl who had captured his heart and soul and who he would never see become the woman she was meant to be. That even if by some miracle he ever saw the light of day, he would only ever see _her_ in the darkest parts of the night.

She would haunt his dreams forever.

And perhaps it _was_ an act of both mercy and punishment. One that he willingly accepted.


End file.
